A Heart In the Right Place
by CrankyHornedNoseJudithFngrl
Summary: Elaina Walters is a teenage girl who feels different from others because she has Kartagener's Syndrome. Can the big-hearted actress and comedian Catherine o'Hara cheer her up after a hospital scare?


Hello, fellow Catherine O'Hara fans!!!! This story actually has its origins in a challenge piece that I wrote for my Creative Writing class! It was an assignment in which I had to write in a teenager's voice, which is not my strong suit, so if you could R and R, I'd love that!!! Enjoy!!!

Disclaimer: I own my OC of Elaina, but not Catherine O'Hara. And no, I've never met her either, but it would be cool if I did!

_A Heart in the Right Place_

Hey there. My name is Elaina Walters. I am fourteen years old, and I live in Eastern Kentucky and go to Susan B. Anthony high school. I'm extremely shy and introverted, and like to avoid drawing attention to myself. However, this has always proved to be difficult for me. You see, I have just been diagnosed with something called Kartagener's Syndrome. It's caused by my organs being situated on the wrong side of my body. That's pretty wild, isn't it? I mean, all my life my heart has been on the wrong side of my body, and my mom and I only found about it just a few months ago. If I manage my KGS properly, it doesn't cause me much trouble, but in the beginning, it sure made me feel …well, different.

It's not like you just wake up one morning and you have KGS; you can have it for most of your life without realizing it. When I was a kid, I had chronic bronchitis and ear infections all the time. Furthermore, even after the bronchitis was treated with antibiotics, I would wheeze when I breathed in and out. My parents and doctor thought that I might have asthma or something like that, but with KGS, the cilia on your lungs don't move and brush away dust and crap like they should, so, it stays there and festers. That's what can cause infections and wheezing.

I guess the whole rigmarole with the KGS really took off when I went to see a heart doctor for a routine checkup back in March. I'm still a little bit bitter over the whole diagnosis thing; I'm not gonna lie. Just a routine checkup, and that was it. That was what they promised me. No one told me that my life was going to change in any way and that I would come out of there as a "special needs" person. But, that's what happened. I can't help feeling this way sometimes; I just do. I try my best to detach myself from my bad attitude, but there are times when I just have to allow myself to mope a little bit. And it's okay, just as long as it doesn't keep you from doing what you like. That's what a special friend of mine told me not long ago; I'll tell you more about her later!!

…..Anyways, as I was saying, when I went for my heart checkup, the doctor did something called a mammogram on my stomach, and then looked all confused and said, "Wait a minute; what's this?" like, over and over again. I was starting to get pretty freaked down there on that bench. I felt like saying something like, "Well, what is it? If anyone's got a right to know, it's me!" I didn't, though. Before I'd come, my mom had, like, the LONGEST talk with me about this thing called "compliance." If you're starting to get the vibe that going to the doctor isn't on my hit list, then gold star for your forehead.

So, we eventually found out that the reason for all my respiratory problems was the fact that my heart wasn't in the right place, to use poetic license with an old saying. This was supposedly the reason why I wheezed (Is it wheezed or whoze? I'm never sure; hee hee) and sniffled so much. The next thing I knew, I was given a machine called a nebulizer, which is a cumbersome device with a tube and mask attached. I'm supposed to put the mask over my mouth and breathe in this weird mist that comes through the mouthpiece. The mist is supposed to dissipate the crud on my lungs and in my nose, since my cilia don't work because of the KGS. I can remember that when my mother and I were choosing what nebulizer I wanted, a nurse who must have thought I was seven or something came up to me and asked if I wanted one with a goofy dinosaur face painted on the mask part. I held back my impulse to stare at her as if she'd said, "There's a stack of waffles on your head!" and just said, "No thanks."

It didn't take long for all the important people in my life to discover how different I was. When my bestie Chelsea was hanging at my house once, I had to have a breathing treatment and be hooked up to that freakin' nebulizer right in front of her. If she thought that was weird or anything, she didn't say. My parents worry too much, too. My mom is always on the internet looking up facts about KGS and different types of treatment.

"I've read on one or two websites that if we continue with your treatments and do everything the doctor says, then you should feel healthier by your early-to-mid-twenties," she told me once. Great. Something to look forward to.

Now that I'm on the subject of my mom's internet obsession, I can probably go ahead and tell about my talk with my aforementioned special friend, Catherine O'Hara. You know, the actress who was in _Waiting for Guffman_ , _Home Alone_, and, more recently, _Where the Wild Things Are_? Well, she has something called dextrocardia with situs inversus, which is kind of like what I have. And she came to see me when I needed a friend the most!!! I'll tell you all about it right now!

I still don't know how my mom managed to do this, but while she was surfing the web one night, looking for info on KGS, she found a Catherine O'Hara fansite that mentioned that she has dextrocardia. It didn't really go into detail about it; it may as well have just said, "Catherine O'Hara is married with two teenage sons." That's what's so cool about her; she doesn't let her illness get her down, and she's always really positive! What's even cooler is that the fansite even had her email handle on it!!! Mrs. O'Hara's really friendly and doesn't mind fans contacting her! So, my mom wrote to her about how I was just diagnosed with KGS and having a tough time with adjusting and feeling different, and would it be possible for her to come visit me and talk with me about her experiences with dextrocardia! And do you know what? My mom told me much later that Cath (that's her nickname) told her that the first thing she did was to say to her agent, "Josh, we gotta postpone my interview about costarring with Meryl. I'm going to Eastern Kentucky to see this little girl!"

Well, I knew nothing about this, and went on feeling sorry for myself and thinking that I was the ABSOLUTE ONLY ONE with KGS. I mean, no one else that I knew had it, and my friends didn't know anyone who did either! Sure, there are lots of kids at my school who have asthma or have had pneumonia once or twice, but it's not the same thing. It sort of made me feel like a specimen of some kind; the carrier of a rare anomaly that had never even been heard of before. It's not a good feeling to have. Not _at all._

It also didn't help things much that I got a really serious lung infection sometime back in June. Well, I guess I shouldn't say that; after all, that led to when I finally met- well, I'm getting ahead of myself. Anyway, I was having a lot of trouble breathing, so I had to be rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night. I hadn't meant to fall asleep, because I was scared I was stop breathing and thus die, but I did anyway. And when I woke up; sure enough, I couldn't catch my breath!!! So, I was checked into the emergency room and they put me on that nebulizer once again.

As I breathed the medicated mist in, I started to grow very tired. My eyelids began to droop and objects in my line of vision blurred together. As I nodded off, I could vaguely hear a sort of bell-like voice outside my little hospital room where my mother sat with the nurses. It was a kind of voice that swung from brassy and self-assured to giggly and playful. I peered over the nebulizer mask to see who this voice belonged to, and through my blurred, sleepy vision, I saw a smartly dressed, blue-eyed blonde woman being pushed away from the doorway by a doctor.

_Now who does he think he is?_ I thought as I watched.

"Please let me in," I thought I could hear her saying. "I promised the little girl and her mother that I would come. I can't disappoint her."

_Little girl?_ I thought to myself. _I'm fourteen years old. People, jeez!_

"First of all, who are you?" one of the doctors demanded. People in positions of authority are so rude sometimes.

The woman moved back a bit to free herself from the jerk doctor's grip.

"My name is Ca….."

I fell asleep just then, I'm afraid.

I'm not sure when I woke up or how long I slept; all I know is that when I finally did wake up, I could see the sky tinged with the pinks, oranges, blues and purples of a summer sunset from my window.

"Well, hi there," said that same voice that shifted from brassy and self-assured to giggly and playful. "You certainly slept a long time, sweetheart! And a good thing, too. You certainly needed it after a night like last night!"

I opened my eyes all the way, turned towards the voice, and saw the same blonde, blue-eyed woman from the previous night sitting near my gurney. She smiled at me, and her blue eyes twinkled.

"If I'm not mistaken, you must be Elaina," she said, still smiling. "I'm Catherine O'Hara, but you can just call me Cath, if you want. It's nice to finally meet you. Your mother has told me so much about you- only good things, of course!" she said with a chuckle and a smile that raised crinkles around her eyes.

Although I liked Catherine almost immediately, I was still a bit disoriented and, even though I was too old for it, I just wanted my mom right then.

"Uh…hi," I said groggily; trying to sit up. "Do you know where my mom is?" I asked, trying to sound as cool and nonchalant as possible when I asked that particular question.

"Oh, she went down to the cafeteria to get us some food," Cath replied. "I don't know if you're up for some food yet, but I sure am! My stomach's been growling like an angry Wild Thing since three o' clock!" she laughed, referencing the upcoming movie that she was voicing a character for.

"I've actually been in a few movies. You ever seen _Nightmare Before Christmas_?" she asked me. "Well, I did the voice of Sally the rag doll!"

"Oh, I love that movie!" I replied, sitting up in bed all the way.

Somehow, with Cath sitting there, I didn't feel so bad about being in the hospital anymore. Everything seems to change for the better when you find a really sweet, lovable friend to talk to.

Cath stopped laughing then and changed her facial expression to look sort of bummed-out. She wasn't really good at this, though, and when I giggled at her attempts to keep from smiling, she ended up smiling, too. It was kind of like trying to hold back a sneeze- it always comes out eventually, whether you want it to or not.

"So, whataya in for, hun?" she asked me jokingly, as though we were cell mates in a prison. She was, of course, referring to my hospitalization.

"What? Oh, you mean, how come I'm in the hospital?" I asked. "I got a really bad lung infection 'cause I have this disorder called Kartagener's Syndrome. It's this thing where the cilia in my lungs and nose don't move at all, so all this bacteria and junk gets stuck, and…" I interrupted myself when I discovered that Catherine had been nodding her head the whole time.

"What are you nodding for?" I asked her.

"I know just what you're talking about, Elaina," she told me. "I don't exactly have KGS, but I have dextrocardia with situs inversus. That means that my heart…"

"…Your heart and lungs are on the wrong side of your body," I finished for her. I could feel my eyes widening. I actually knew a famous person who had more or less the same problems that I did! And here I thought I was the only one who had to deal with KGS!

After this revelation, the two of us talked some more about "our little secret" and what it felt like to be different from others. Cath told me that having KGS didn't make me less of a person, and that everyone had some qualities that made them unique from everyone else. She also told me that it's perfectly normal to be in a funky mood about having KGS every once in a while, just as long as you maintain a generally positive attitude.

"And do me a favor, okay? Stop saying that your heart's on the _wrong_ side of your body," she said to me with a crinkle-eyed smile. "From what I can tell, your heart's in just the right place."

She leaned forward to give me a hug. I buried my face into her stomach so she wouldn't notice the fact that I had started crying.

"I'm grateful to have met you, Elaina. You're a brave girl. I hope we can stay friends even after I have to go," Catherine continued.

Go? I didn't want Cath to go. She was the only friend I had who knew exactly what I was going through.

"But if you give me your mailing address and phone number, we could keep in touch that way," she said.

I looked up at her and blinked away my tears. "Okay, great!" I said happily.

Just then, my mom came in.

"Well, I see that you've met the great Catherine O'Hara, Elaina," she said to me.

"Oh, go on," Cath said modestly.

My mom then turned her attention to me. "It's time for your medicine, Elaina," she said apologetically, knowing that this was something I dreaded. "We want to go home by tonight, don't we?"

"Oh, okay," I replied, trying to stay positive like Catherine had told me in her advice.

Cath must have noticed that I wasn't thrilled about taking medicine, because she took an inhaling device out of her purse and said to me, "Say, Elaina, let's do it together."

So we did.

Since then, I've learned to take charge of my KGS and am doing a lot better. I haven't had a severe lung infection since that weekend in June. I've even started self-advocating, which means telling people up front about my KGS and what it means. Not only that, but Cath and I keep in touch regularly, and she sent me an autographed photo of her character from_ Where the Wild Things_ _Are_ just last month! In the movie, she plays a grouchy monster named Judith, who has a horn on the end of her nose. After seeing the movie, I emailed Cath and said that I thought maybe the reason why Judith was so grumpy all the time was because she had KGS too, and was sad and lonely because she felt different from the other Wild Things! Cath replied immediately, saying that maybe she did! Isn't that funny?

I'm very grateful to Catherine for having changed my outlook on KGS. I'm not weird or different; I'm Elaina! And maybe if I ever become famous, I'll see Cath again in person someday!!!

The End


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